tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11554895875442594432018-03-05T17:51:16.803+01:00MercetronMercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-30991339660069862512014-04-07T18:47:00.001+02:002014-04-07T20:48:49.728+02:00Why so few updates?<div style="text-align: justify;">Two main reasons.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I would love to blog more about my work as I work in the games industry. The problem is that I work in the games industry. Toilet paper rolls need to sign non-disclosure agreements to even get into the city where I live, more or less. Maybe not entirely true, but almost. It could be. So, I can't talk about that. Yet.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The other things I could write about is my life. However, for some reason, I seldom talk in detail about my life other than to complain about stuff. Not that I'm in any way a depressed or bitter guy. I think my life is fairly normal in its ups and downs. But for some reason I feel that the things that are closest to my heart... is private. Even things that are fully normal. I tend to keep those things for myself. I think it's because I feel so strong for them and cherish them so much that I don't want other people's input in fear that they might, deliberately or not, diminish them.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Part of me just wants to go my own way. I do in a lot of things. I like it and would rather have a slightly more quieter life than I have now. I'm an introvert and do well in small circles. I live with people I love beyond myself and I want nothing more than to focus my attention on them.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And part of me wanting to go my own way is because I've grown so incredibly tired over the years of people having opinions about everything that other people do. Opinions that go so far as to stand in the way of others with no clear benefit or reason other than possibly skewing the world into their idealized - and distorted - reality. Opinions that push for laws forbidding people from loving the people they want and living the way they want, with only the opinionated bystander's best at heart. Even opinions that forbid other opinions, like some religious groups that think that their opinions deserve more protection than those of others.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I'm tired of being active in political discussions, because I care far too much about some things to back down and be quiet. This also drains me as it can sometimes fill all of my waking hours, playing a debate over and over, trying to figure out the best way to formulate what I mean so that the point might come across at least to someone. Over the years however I guess I've been burned by the fact that most "debates" - at least those online - draw the attention of people who just want to state their opinions and well... I guess "be immature" is the short version of it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I love a mature and diplomatic argument that stays mature, because they can accelerate a learning process like crazy in all involved parties. Not only may others realize your point of view, you get to understand theirs, and somewhere in the sometimes chaotic soup of it all... people, me certainly included, can start thinking in other ways and views can <i>actually change</i>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I've taken a long journey through my life. My views have changed because of others but mostly because of myself. The most important change happened in my teenage years when I grew tired of hating myself, and decided that "hey, maybe I do like guys too and should stop militantly denying it". Since then, I made it a point to always be ready to question my values and beliefs, most of which had come from others anyway. Some stayed the same, some grew stronger as I explored them and some unraveled completely like a fuzzed up ball of yarn becoming a simple string that led nowhere. Disposable.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Metaphoric enough for ya? I think I'm going to stop here for now.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Anyway... Ijust jumped back into politics for a bit. Only for a little while. We'll see where that goes. Scary as hell. Whatever happens I bet that I and my loved ones can live the lives we want anyway, if not just somewhere else and with a lot of work. Then I might actually start writing more, when I feel that I have more control of my life.</div>Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-78859066307018215442012-10-23T07:35:00.003+02:002012-10-23T07:43:59.681+02:00Oh, f-ck<div style="text-align: justify;">The title summarizes what I feel right now.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The weekend passed and I got absolutely no time to just recharge. A friend turned 30 and had a really nice party which I of course don't regret attending, and the day after had me and my mate go for some much needed furniture shopping. A good weekend, but oh how I feel the repercussions of not taking even one single day <i>off</i> from it all.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The game client is compiling. I need to get in there and look some things up before moving on to my other point on my schedule - defining what sounds we'll need to request from our sound artist. It looks like I need to do a full recompile. That'll take an hour. Guess I'll have to start with the list anyway.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The reason I'm on my&nbsp;seldom&nbsp;updated blog right now is that f-ck. I need to vent. Not anger or anything like that, but just everything. My load is currently extremely high, higher than I'm used to, but the difference between now and - say - 6 years ago, is that feel that I can handle it. But, I need to shut down now and then and recharge. To wake up one day of the week at least and think <i>"hey, what's the time? oh, it's THAT day, I don't need to care... but I'm up now, so what to do? yeah I think I'll fire Guild Wars 2 up... no wait, I'll just not get up from the couch and then I'll look at something stupid on Netflix. or, some tutorials on some cool thing that I've been wondering about for a while..."</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I'm not really getting that here on the blog, of course, but at least I'm braiding text out of the strands of my mind and getting some feelings out in some form of orderly fashion. It feels soothing. It helps, I think.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I've got a cup of coffee before me and the game is still compiling. I started watching "Moon" on Netflix yesterday and got halfway through. That's a movie I probably would have never watched if it wasn't for that new service (new to Sweden anyway) where I can just click and watch instantly. It's nice. It's very different and I want to know what happens next. I'll probably finish it in the evening. And that's another thing - I'm looking forward to watching a movie. <i>Movies</i>. Like, I haven't done that in many years because getting to the point of watching something is always filled with obstacles. If it isn't the drag of downloading a torrent it is the drag of buying a disc absolutely <i>filled</i> with advertisements... that I just <i>paid </i>for. Buying a DVD or Bluray today almost feels like willingly kicking yourself in the crotch, taking a photo of it and <a href="http://www.facebook.com/help/224562897555674" target="_blank">shaaaaaaring it with all your friends and family</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">*sip*</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Yep, still compiling. This is a long one. So, a sound list...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That reminds me of the LiveStream I did with our publisher <b>Paradox Interactive</b> on <b>twitch.tv</b> last week. You can find it <a href="http://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive/b/335686116" target="_blank">here</a>. It's an hour of babbling and game play from "my" latest DLC release for <b>Magicka</b>, "<b>Dungeons &amp; Daemons</b>". I haven't watched it myself yet actually, but I know it's rather lame and&nbsp;embarrassing. I was relatively prepared for it, I thought, but then they changed the setup at the very last minute and suddenly most of my preparations went through the window. That, and it's two very different things to build English sentences in writing and in speech. And screw trademark symbols - I'm not a representative for anything here but myself<span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: start;"><span class="Unicode">™</span></span>&nbsp;and my creativity.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Back to sounds. I'll have to go through all the scenes and "play" it in my head. This'll take a while. Good thing I don't have to wait for my brain to compile. Hm... or is that what this just was?</div>Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-65787195813743585012012-08-13T06:13:00.003+02:002012-08-14T12:15:13.939+02:00Idea: Minecraft, Bases<div style="text-align: justify;">I would like a mod for Minecraft that does the following...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When you create your world, you start next to your "base". The base is a obelisk of some sort, or maybe a magical tree, or something similar. Something stationary. Once built, it cannot be moved.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The mod would add a lot of monsters and animals, and maybe resources. Some of the monsters are basic ones, like the one's already in Minecraft, and the others will be more and more difficult.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now, the "base" obelisk erects an area around it, stretching 200-500 meters or more, that gradually decreases the difficulty of monsters spawned in that area. The farther you get from your base, the harder your encounters will become (or, technically, the less decreased the difficulty of the encounters will be).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Also, the farther away from the starting point of the server you get, the encounters will get generally harder and the resources and treasures should be generally better. This gradient should stretch over several thousands of meters. Some resources might not be found at all around the very start. Base obelisks does not affect the resources, only the difficulty of monster encounters.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">You should be able to build a "base" obelisk. This is a process. Let's take a magical base tree as an example. You first need to plant it using a special seed that you've found somewhere. Maybe you must enchant it as well, or something. When you've planted it, you must grow it. Using some sort of relatively difficulty-to-get-yet-attainable resource, you feed it either directly or through some sort of internal "inventory". With time and player presence, this will grow. The more it grows, the farther and stronger its "encounter easification field" will grow.&nbsp;However, before its become a real trunk and not just a growing sprout, it will even attract &nbsp;a steady raid of monsters, so you will have to protect it while feeding it.&nbsp;The tree will then need both water and sun to not wither.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">From time to time, there should be light enemy raids, even in the "safe" areas. The tree should be a main target for these raids. If it gets damaged, the remaining pieces of it will wither and the safe area will fail. How this will work with no players around, I'm not sure. Maybe it would feel Ok if the raids came only with players around. You'll probably want to be in the area a lot of the time, since it's an area of general safety for mining and building. The enemy raids should be fairly light. Nothing armageddon-like as that would defeat the purpose of erecting a safe area.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Nether could be similar, but require another way (or no way) of building such a "base" obelisk. Maybe its difficulty should simply scale with distance from a portal, and nothing more, making it hostile as it should be.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A mod like this will make it important to get further away from safety if you wish to find good resources. More difficult monsters will yield better rewards when killed, but will hamper you if you wish to harvest the natural resources in the area. You will have to erect well protected bases here and there with a base obelisk if you want to make the area habitable and workable which will probably be worth it, but you'll have to travel further away from that safety in order to find the lucrative monsters. The mod would also make it important to work together. It could possibly even increase the density of encounters by a factor based on how many players are in the area or on the server.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Apart from the new monsters and resources, this should not be that tricky a mod to make. It would give the game a more tangible and acute sense of progression. Granted, the progression would still be limited in how many interesting monsters and resources you can throw into the system, but still. I seldom fight monsters when looking for diamonds in Minecraft. Or clay, or fine wood, or plants or anything. My biggest fear is falling into lava and as long as you don't mine downwards you're always fairly safe.<br /><br /><b>EDIT:</b> Similarly, monsters could have their own bases that increase their numbers and strength in the area. If we use the tree as an example, they could have their own decayed and moldy version of it that they protect with powerful monsters. Maybe it doesn't even need sun to grow, to make it more interesting and hard to find. These bases are rare and generally just generated when the world is. They may, when destroyed, drop something extremely rare that does something arcane and awesome. Perhaps a seed to a giant bean stalk, or fertilizer that allows the players to grow a tree in the Nether, or something. Something really worth getting.</div>Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-3263864023762043612012-08-07T01:00:00.003+02:002012-08-07T01:02:27.571+02:00Counting Cheap<div style="text-align: justify;">...poker cards.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I can't sleep. <b>Naturally</b>, because I've been awake since 5 and the time is now closing in on 1 in the middle of the night. Why not. And yes, that's in "military time". We don't do "pm" or "am" over here. 5 is five and can only occur once every 24 hours.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So, what did I do today? I went with my partner to look at a couple of apartments. A not so fantastic one and a pretty awesome one. It's located a bit off, but it's a nice apartment and has a lot of diverse cultures living in the area, something I personally feel is fascinating.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I also put an order for 2000 blank poker cards from The Game Crafter website. It was a sale, where each card cost 1 cent each, so I bought 2000 cards for $20, plus shipping for $25. Why would I buy 2000 blank poker cards? I'm a game designer. I've wanted cards like this for a long time to easily prototype stuff. I have plenty of ideas and an excel sheet with 10 different interdependent balancing tables to prove it. Soon I'll have prototypes to prove it, too.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Actually, I put in an order for 3500 cards, and the other 1500 cards and a fold-out gaming board were for a couple of friends who joined in to make the shipping less painful.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And also, work.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So I'm pretty exhausted. And I can't sleep. Clock rings in 4 hours. I went to bed... 4 hours ago. Oh, fun. Knowing myself I won't be able to sleep in another hour. Because, of course.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I wonder, what would be the harm in a cup of&nbsp;hazelnut&nbsp;coffee at this point. My "tomorrow" is fucked either way.</div>Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-68634075358043435502012-07-27T18:45:00.000+02:002012-07-30T09:16:23.577+02:00Linearly Explaining a Non-Linear Creative Process<div style="text-align: justify;">I've been thinking for a while that I should document my work at <b>Pieces Interactive</b>&nbsp;with the <b>Magicka</b> game and put it together to nice and tidy blogposts giving the reader a good view into the thoughts behind what I do. The challenge maps, the items, the campaign maps, and so on.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So, I started documenting some of the process by writing in various documents - one for each map, for example, and it went fairly well... in the beginning. I've realized that what I do when my brain goes into creative mode is that it works in a very non-linear fashion. It's like, in the beginning, it's straight forward and tries to get a grasp of the entire picture. To do that, it's usually about going from point A to point B, a start and an end. At some point I see the whole picture. I <i>must </i>do this - I can't form a solution to a problem to which I don't know all the facts.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">At this point, I usually get to some sort of slow-down. Well, it might feel like it anyway for the linear part that had just made sure to absorb all the facts.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, behind the scenes, there's another part of me that starts working that's not really very linear. It starts by understanding the entire whole as an entire whole. It still needs help by my more logic side to turn and twist things. It does this by throwing vaguely formed questions about the whole in the form of feelings, and "I" respond by trying to see whether this fits as a concrete and corporeal part of the whole. In other words, I get vaguely shaped pieces of a puzzle thrown at me. They mostly have a color or pattern, representing a feeling, but their shape isn't very well defined. It's up for the logic me to make sure these parts get a suitable shape so that they fit in the whole, or send it back and ask for a different hue or color altogether. Sometimes I send back a question myself. And, while doing that, more facts are formed and fed to the non-linear part of me and the whole keeps growing, changing, shifting, moving.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It sometimes feels like we're two very different beings, working diligently on <i>one </i>complex&nbsp;task <i>together</i>. I can't use my logic side to hurry up and work on a problem that I know my... emotional or creative part does best. But I seldom need to. I can, however, work on other things while that other part takes it time. I know the pieces <i>will </i>fall into place given enough time and solving other problems and not forcing things is usually the way to go.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At my current job I feel that both parts of me work beautifully. I design the feel of all the challenges, items and versus maps and I implement them as precise as I can by scripting them. Even the scripting takes a bit of creativity as many of the "new" features used in some of the challenges are simply cleverly braided together using functionality that was already present.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I digress. I think...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What I was supposed to say is that once I reach a certain point in the process of a map or similar, my brain starts working non-linearly. Instead of one "thread" of thought I get some sort of... tangle of thoughts, all intertwining. One thread keeps the feeling of the whole in mind, while another tries to braid together with it to form details in the feeling, while another logic thread tries to braid itself with the technical and artistic limitations and possibilities of the game and our team, while another lasso thread keeps everything new in spirit and balance with the rest of the game, while another thread jumps in from time to time to blow at and whisper seemingly random things at the threads and make them shift and flutter in the wind for a bit and easier find their grooves.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sometimes threads snap off and they go to the bin in favour of other threads and ideas and feelings. Sometimes the major underlying threads change drastically, either by myself or by new facts or ideas from the team, and the other threads either adapt, change or get replaced completely.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>I love it.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PqVUhGZlBX0/UBLE1m7-ZsI/AAAAAAAAAdQ/TKDawuYwfJw/s1600/ps6pc.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PqVUhGZlBX0/UBLE1m7-ZsI/AAAAAAAAAdQ/TKDawuYwfJw/s200/ps6pc.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Upcoming map... part... tease.</td></tr></tbody></table>What I love less is that I can't easily put it down in writing. The design, yes, but the road there, no.&nbsp;<span style="background-color: white;">It foils my plans.</span><span style="background-color: white;">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: white;">I can mention some of the more simple choices I've made and write a while about those. Why did I put Trolls in this wave where there were once Beholders? I could probably explain that, more or less. Those are logical, linear decisions. I can even go into some depth of the feel I was aiming for here and there, but for the most part...</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Well, to explain much of it I'd have to make some sort of hypertext document, where parts refer to other parts both before and after themselves in the same text. I realized as I was filling in the files for the various, and seemingly isolated, challenge and versus maps that I started referring to the other maps and other things. Some thought here depended on some thought there. Some addition or cut here depended on some addition or cut in a completely different place, map or item.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The blogpost would be linear - it has a beginning and an end - but its contents would refer to each other and seemingly loop. And they probably do sometimes.&nbsp;<span style="background-color: white;">What started the loop that gave birth to some of the important conclusions? Well uh... the thing is, the creative and non-linear part of me can't really speak in linear terms. Duh. I'd have to put a lot of effort in trying to bring that process into an explainable and measurable form.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">I'd confuse the fudge out of both the reader and myself, because... I would ironically be <i>trying to solve a problem to which I don't know all the parts</i>.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This blogpost is probably the best I can do in that regard. I'll do my best, though, because it's fun to give the players an insight into the thought-processes that are behind the Magicka DLCs coming from us at Pieces Interactive.</div>Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-18199022456706372172012-07-23T09:58:00.000+02:002012-07-23T12:55:07.153+02:00Not Listening To Myself<div style="text-align: justify;">I really should start listening to myself more often. I don't know how many times I've said that to myself after I've bought a game that someone told me was awesome but I knew from everything I had seen that I thought it looked like a horrible game <i>for me</i>. I have more or less always been right and can't think of a time that I thought "hey, this game WAS fun after all and worth the money!".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">Call of Duty... many of them. I admit I've spent about 300 hours on the PC version of MW2 because I could play with my friends without exception and it was easy to just join a game. Yes, it was a wonky server system that didn't work all of the time, but it worked most of the time for us. Then came the other games. And I bought two of them, knowing I shouldn't have, but I listened to others. A bit like the "slow" idiot in this video.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowFullScreen='true' webkitallowfullscreen='true' mozallowfullscreen='true' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/e-LE0ycgkBQ?feature=player_embedded' FRAMEBORDER='0' /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">And blah, blah and blah. No, I haven't fallen for all of the hyped games, but of course I've bought some of the huge AAA titles, such as Battlefield 3 - but that's because I felt from the start that I would like it and hey, I did.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The other day I bought RAGE.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I didn't like anything of what I saw from it, from the game play to the graphics and aesthetics. People and a couple of friends talked warmly of the game play however, and I thought hey, it's cheap during the Steam Summer Sale, so why not. Naturally, the day after I bought it someone pointed out to me that the game cost 1/3rd as much in a local store. Anyway, I installed the 21 GB of game and gave it a shot.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Blam.&nbsp;<span style="background-color: white;">Unexplained settings.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: white;">Unskippable intro. Okay, some important recording plays, but I interrupt it by opening the very first door upon which I step out of something. I can't get back in. I want to hear the message though... so I restart from last checkpoint. I need to watch the intro again. Still unskippable. I step out of the first thing, gets greeted by cutscene. A man asks me to come to him, sure, I'll do that, I'll just look over here fi- BLAM. Gets shot by invisible sniper because I passed invisible border. Dead. Reload last save, which luckily was outside of first room, but I have to watch encounter cutscene again.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">Okay, passed that thing. I'm apparently in danger, especially since I'm clearly visibly someone that the bandits want and we have to bail. I get to a camp, gets a "quest" that I have to accept, and the quest is... to go to the bandit camp. The bandits that were awfully dangerous just a second ago. With a simple pistol. My reward? An armor to put outside my suit. Why not give me the armor before I go in? Why not give me the gun at the beginning, so we could just kill the bandits there instead?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">Okay. Mission... Drive there. Oh, but not further, invisible car wall, for reasons. Why? No reason. Into the mission area, invisible walls everywhere. Can't go there. Can't jump over this, but you can jump over that. Health bar? Nope. But I have health. Why can't I see this important resource? Oh well. OK, so I'll have to&nbsp;defibrillate using some sort of mini-game. A timer tells me to get ready, alright! ...at the end of the timer, it asks me if I'm ready. Yes... Now it's charging. Zaap... I completely miss the timing. I live again. Apparently, my timing here determines how much health I get when I live again. Wait, what health? Where can I see it?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">Then, the driving back and forth. The people standing in your way to slowly tell you things that they'll then show to you, in writing, in a quest contract paper window that appears where you have to either accept or decline. But... if I decline, you'll just stand in my way and not allow me to pass you. The game will halt until I accept, so why do I have to accept? It's not a role-playing game. You're a shooter. You do that <i>relatively</i> good, I guess, so why are you wasting my time with nonsense?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">I uninstalled it. 20 GB of "unique textures" that all look the same. Grey textures in uneven resolution loaded "as needed" meaning when I look around I can actually see them load, unimaginative areas, invisible walls everywhere, a metaphoric wading through mud between the actual game play just to slow me down, and the story is more uninteresting than the level 20 quests of the original World of Warcraft. I don't have time for this. Why don't you just give me a solid shooter experience when that's what you do best? It doesn't have to be Quake or Doom, but you're not an RPG in any stretch of the imagination so why do you want me to think you are?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">Ugh. No.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>I bought a lot of other titles during the Steam Summer Sale</b>, following mostly my gut (and wallet).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">Some Heroes of Might and Magic VI which will be the first in that series that I've ever played, Puzzle Quest I which I've bought and played on Xbox 360 before (I didn't like the story of the sequel). Bulletstorm, because I loved it and wanted it on Steam instead of Origin. Risen. Bastion. Deadspace I and II. Unreal Gold, because Unreal meant a lot to me years back. Mirror's Edge, because I loved it for the Xbox 360 and want to try it on PC. Cave Story+ because I played it once and loved the crap out of it. Fable I because I don't want to use my clunky old Xbox for it and it won't run on the Xbox 360. Dear Esther because the idea is fascinating. Recettear because it was crap cheap and looks charming. Galactic Civilizations II because I know I love that type of game ever since one of the first I played, Deadlock, back in the day. Darksiders, I liked it kind of, even though it has more tiresome testosterone than Gears of War and God of War combined. Everything roars.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-frkkUYQcKqc/UA0DdlP2S9I/AAAAAAAAAdE/Ct20fQ8FRn8/s1600/img5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" height="208" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-frkkUYQcKqc/UA0DdlP2S9I/AAAAAAAAAdE/Ct20fQ8FRn8/s320/img5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">Anyway, I should just go with my gut. It's usually right.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">I should play old games more, too.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: white;">I should try to get </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWZ2MTF1sT0" style="background-color: white;">Fallen Haven</a><span style="background-color: white;"> to work again. I wonder if I think that's a good game still.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">And I'm looking forward to <a href="http://www.torchlight2game.com/news/2012/07/17/travis-with-some-torchlight-ii-updates/">Torchlight II</a> and <a href="http://www.pathofexile.com/">Path of Exile</a>, both of which are made by open people that really know - or at least try - to make fun gaming experiences. They know their strengths and keep to them.</span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><b>EDIT: </b>Oh, and I probably should start playing the games that I buy. Like, sit with <i>one </i>of them and play it until I either finish it or grow tired of it. Or simply give up because I know I'll just get pissed if I continue, like in the case of RAGE.</span></div>Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-19086546108244635082012-07-13T14:06:00.000+02:002012-07-23T10:19:09.339+02:00It's not a paradox<div style="text-align: justify;">So, our publisher Paradox really likes what we're doing for them and the game <b>Magicka</b>. Seeing one of their representatives play some of the new stuff we're making, grinning, going "aaah" and "oooh" and ending it all with several big thumbs up really made my day.&nbsp;<span style="background-color: white;">And it was already a pretty good day.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">While I obviously can't say much about what I'm currently working on due to reasons, we're really thinking outside the box with our upcoming things, both in terms of game mechanics and difficulty. I can't personally beat our stuff alone but I've made sure it's balanced and possible. Every time I fail I know it's because I wasn't good enough. I have all the tools at my disposal to beat it but I get tripped up. Tripped up by the very things I added to the game to cause the player to trip up, even. How's that for irony?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">In other news... I tend to get chosen as administrator or moderator for forums, because I know how to stick to rules and not abuse them, and I'm fairly good at being fair. Sometimes you need to actually act, which some moderators fear, but you can't just start banning and deleting just because you and other users don't share the same opinions or do things that others are not allowed to - unless this is stated in the forum rules and guidelines.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">For example, on the Paradox Plaza's forums, they don't usually allow for links to external sites. Being given administrator rights, I asked them for scenarios where I would like to link to external sites anyway for either good solutions for potential problems with Magicka and the like, as I felt I might need it. I didn't but asked anyway because that's what I do. I try to keep things professional.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">Then it comes as a surprise when one user of a community sub-forum that I've become moderator for goes on a righteous rampage over how horribly unfair and tyrannic I am when I decide to delete some posts of his (and mine) where he starts being sarcastic and makes me defend myself. I did so and responded that "wait, I should have just deleted this trolling and drama, my bad". I was appointed moderator status to prevent and stop drama and not feed into it myself. But this was incredible terrible and on top of that, I've apparently (according to this one user) been horribly sarcastic and horrible to everybody else for a long time and deleted their posts like a mad man. Ironically, I've never heard </span><i style="background-color: white;">any of this</i><span style="background-color: white;">&nbsp;from </span><i style="background-color: white;">anyone</i><span style="background-color: white;"> (nor deleted anything but clear verbal punch-fests just as I'm supposed to).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">And oh my god, the time and energy he put into proving how I abused my power (though I'm hardly ever online, for one), but all the examples he could come up with was times that I had nagged and complained about things and how people act. Yep, I do that sometimes, but when I say "this is really annoying" he have systematically interpreted this as "you should and may not do this", or something. I don't know, the whole thing is illogical and blown up into cosmic proportions... because he can't take the fact that he have done something wrong and just go on.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">Well, letting things like these just go is one of the tools in a moderators tool belt. Yes, you should naturally try to handle problems with professional dialogues and, when needed, admit fault if you do something you feel is unfair. Yet, the most important thing is to move on. Some users will dislike you, your ways or the products you're working with or supporting, regardless of what you do.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Moving on is important for two reasons:</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><ol><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">The problem is noted and left behind, because most of the time the </span><i style="background-color: white;">problem</i><span style="background-color: white;"> just isn't worth putting time and energy into compared to other things. Also, some users just won't give up. Is one user that important to you that you'll drop everything&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: white;">you're doing&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: white;">and everyone else just to make that one user happy? Probably not. You'll of course try to solve the problem, but once you've done what you can then that's it.</span></li><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">The problem itself is oftentimes the mere existence of itself, as it's often just a brawl, trolled up drama or a heated argument. As a moderator, you're there to prevent and quell those things, not feed them or let them be fed by others, regardless of what you emotionally feel that you want yourself. That's why it can be hard, but you're a moderator and it must be done. After all, if you can't be expected to, nobody can.</span></li></ol><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">So yes, what makes it a good day is the realization that hey, I don't have to deal with this.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: white;">It feels good to be able to stop and say</span><span style="background-color: white;">&nbsp;</span><i>"hey, it's actually not my responsibility to make that person understand that his logic is broken"</i><span style="background-color: white;">.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: white;">Someone might not like me for it, but I do what I can and have no obligation to do anything more for this one person, and he can dislike me all he wants. I've done my best, and if you still don't like it, then that's not my problem. Move along. I do. And it feels <i>so good</i>.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">A couple of years ago I wouldn't be able to let things like this go. I'd defend myself to the end. This person is still that kind of person, and believes that this issue is so important that and huge that he must see to it that I fall from my high horse (by riding one himself). Yet, I'm just trying to sit and relax on a bridge by the lake. I want to take it easy, to chill out, but then there are people like him that sees the smallest conflicts like a great battle against the evil dark and the ever-shining good, and he appoints himself courageous knight of the latter.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">So, why this rant if I can let go, you ask? Wrong conclusion. I've let that argument go and done what I can. I should put a temp-ban on him for not stopping when told, but I think I'll just let it go. He won't learn from it anyway and it'll just feed his martyrdom. I'm writing this because I wanted to spill some of my day to my blog for once. I seldom do. And I felt this was the perfect example to just talk a bit about how work, hobbies and one's personal life can blend together and cause problems if you're not careful.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">I love when my hard work pays off and people come to me and say "hey, you've done one hell of a job". That makes stupid things like these feel so minor, like drops of water running off of me in the rain and down into the water below me as I sit here on the bridge, dangling my feet over the lake's surface.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>EDIT:</b> Oh and apparently one of the main designers of the original Magicka, Emil Englund, saw the new content the other day and said that he was very impressed with it.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>EDIT 2: </b>Snapple crackle. This upcoming stuff might be some of the best consumer value stuff yet!</span></div>Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-83586938005349834502012-07-02T10:05:00.000+02:002012-07-23T10:32:31.360+02:00No More Facebook<div style="text-align: justify;">A few days ago, I finally terminated my Facebook account permanently. Not because of being "addicted" or anything like that but <a href="http://mercetron.blogspot.se/2011/10/real-person-vs-social-media-person.html">because of this</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-szECc9Hfmoo/T_FXVr0TruI/AAAAAAAAAc0/hMBMMBZCj6A/s1600/6a00d83451da3169e20163009ccd99970d-200wi.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-szECc9Hfmoo/T_FXVr0TruI/AAAAAAAAAc0/hMBMMBZCj6A/s200/6a00d83451da3169e20163009ccd99970d-200wi.png" width="149" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And because I don't want to be Facebook's product to sell, because that's what you are for them. You're not their customer. You're not Google's customer if you use Google+ or any other of their free services either, in fact. You're the product. You're plenty of information to sell and you're a pair of eyes that can look at advertisements. Yet, I still use some Google services. At least they're not trying to "share" everything I do in new ways every week and have me opt-out of that if I want to and if I can find the hidden setting for it like Facebook did. And well, Google still has services that are actually <i>useful</i>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But mainly because of the <b>first reason</b>. I'll quote myself:</div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>"Having to explain any of this really feels like explaining how to walk because it's such a basic thing. Trust and circles. Being you the worker and you the friend and you the parent. It's about filtering away parts of ourselves and sometimes adding a bit more depending on the people you interact with. Put all those groups in a single place... I mean, picture how you would need to shape yourself, what role to put yourself in, for that to work. Ask your friends, family, flirts, co-workers and your boss to come home for a party where you act as if everyone was the same kind of friend. It'd get totally fucked up, and if not, it'd get so extremely shallow and boring. That's what we get with people assuming we're in any shape or form resembling our real selves on Facebook. We're not. That would be absurd."</i></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">And yes, I'll remove the Facebook Like-buttons from my blog the day I can be assed to figure out how.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Another thing with services like that is that they're designed to suck you in and get stuck consuming a stream of unimportant information disguised as important, and make you feel that supplying similar information is important, because everyone else does it. It's really a nasty piece of psychological garbage that a lot of people get completely sucked into. People even lose jobs because of this.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It's meant to give you quick fixes. A few likes. More friends, more potential likes. A photo of a cat. A photo of a hamburger. Oh lucky you, you've got a kid, upload a photo and get an instant high score of likes. Disgustingly optimistic and naive? Tell it to everybody! Call it "being realistic"! Billions of likes! Keep it rolling, don't stop! Welcome to the world of... no substance at all.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Instead, you can be creative and productive with your time. Facebook doesn't want that, naturally, because that would mean less time reloading pages on their site which means seeing less advertisements and supplying less information to their database of what <i>you</i> are interested in.</div>Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-7531173713805900692012-05-25T08:46:00.003+02:002012-07-23T10:32:11.691+02:00Blizzard and Diablo 3, Why they slaughter replayability<div style="text-align: justify;">Blizzard <b>slaughtered replayability</b> in Diablo 3 by making so that there is absolutely no point in replaying the same class again. Your max level Barbarian is, for example, every barbarian. Rather, it can be with just a few clicks.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/80/Diablo_III_cover.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/80/Diablo_III_cover.png" width="143" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">In Diablo 2, your barbarian was THAT barbarian. You could start a new one and make a totally different kind and experience. You had to think your choices through as well so as not to make too many mistakes, which also made you extra attached to the character and the effort you put into it.</span></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I stand by my opinion that the casualization choices they've made have killed off what once was Diablo. They have essentially put training wheels on a genre which made its name by not having training wheels.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">They've instead of modernizing the genre simply switched it out to safe and bland. I'm sorry. I can't see Diablo 3 as more than a graphically really nice, and gameplay-wise adequate (it's too easy for far too long for example), hack'n'slash with as much depth or even less as the PS2 title Dark Alliance. It's just a shade of what Diablo 2 was.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What are they thinking? And starting a real money auction house? That would only make sense if you could in fact make tons of different character builds and have reason to sell and buy and experiment with different setups. It would have made sense in Diablo 2. But here? You've got your max level character and there is really not that many different sets of items suitable for it. You're a barbarian? Alright, have a mix of vitality and/or strength.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Unless... they're planning a World of Warcraft and release many expansions that simply increase the level cap ever so slightly, just to inject new items into the game and have people buy/sell those in the auction house so Blizzard'll get their cut. That's the only realistic plan I can them having, unless they've simply just f-cked up. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><b>After having had a day to reflect, I update:</b></li></ul><div style="text-align: justify;">Of course; that's the point of Diablo 3 having the "one character is all builds". You only need a few clicks to change character build (something that took creating a new character and going down a new path in previous Diablo games), and can much faster purchase new fitting items off of the real money auction house, where a cut goes to Blizzard.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And, of course, the various builds <i>must</i> be designed in a way that you'll need the correct gear for them and you can't just go with a few different items. That would make Blizzard's strategy perfectly clear anyway, and they're not ones to not think things through.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Blizzard then doesn't have to wait for you to build a new unique character up to buy those items - they can just sell you your needed gear (which, essentially, they've disguised as a "player driven" auction house) whenever you need it. It's designed to make you want to buy the things from Blizzard instead of grinding for them yourself. Yes, there is an in-game currency auction house, but most people will obviously want to sell things for real money when the real money auction house goes live (in a few days). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And it's all for the "endgame", mind you. Of course. Because that's Blizzard. Their RPGs can't seem to follow anything but the "oh just you wait, it gets fun in the end (after some 20-30 hours of grinding)" mentality.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Diablo 3 is through-and-through designed for being a game experience fed by microtransactions; the concepts are two halves of the game - the auction house was not designed to be "an addition". </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><b>So a TL;DR.</b></li></ul></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Question: </b>Why does Blizzard slaughter replayability in Diablo 3 by making classes be able to change build at any time?</div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Answer: </b>Because they want to sell you items through microtransactions with as little delay as possible, disguised as a "player driven" auction house. Because of this disguise they could charge a premium fee for access to the game, and, because of this same disguise, the pricing of the sold items can theoretically be&nbsp;ridiculously&nbsp;high and the players, <i>not Blizzard</i>, will get the blame for being greedy.</div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;">It's fucking genius.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Note that I'm not trashing Blizzard. They know their business. Am I disappointed with Diablo 3 as an old Diablo 1 &amp; 2 fan? Oh, yes. But <a href="http://www.pathofexile.com/">I've got myself covered there</a>.&nbsp;</div></div>Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-65940472307967768862012-02-14T14:35:00.002+01:002012-02-14T14:35:21.289+01:00Suddenly, job!Installing the computer and myself at my new workplace, <b>Pieces Interactive</b>!<div><br /></div><div>I shall use my scripting and design abilities to conjure magic.</div>Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-61281668704889836772011-11-22T12:37:00.000+01:002011-11-22T15:24:42.925+01:00That DreamTonight, I had old faithful again. The Dream. That Dream.<br /><br />I was going home from somewhere to somewhere, by train. A very large train, internally, but that's not the point. I had gone shopping for various groceries; some candy I think, perfume, wine. I had my things in an ordinary plastic bag, and was sitting in a rather crowded train. Note that the dream doesn't always take place in a train.<br /><br />Interestingly, as with all versions of this dream, I felt... alive, social, outgoing. I easily talked to people and they knew me, and I knew them. Many faces are usually of people from my childhood, a very few might be from more recent times, but it's more than often strangers to me in real life.<br /><br />Suddenly as I prepare to get off the train, as I know it's like 1 or 2 stations left to go, I realize that I can't find <i>my</i> bag. Or can I? The bag I got doesn't seem quite right. I know for sure what I bought at the store, and my partner at home is expecting me to get some of the things for her... But as I look around and compare bags that seem to be spread around, with nobody really caring that I look in them, I start to realize that I don't know exactly what to expect of the bag; I can't remember clearly what I bought, only the concept of it more or less.<br /><br />I got an idea though. I'd quickly talk to the reception at the train (yes, a reception, remember it was a very large train). I went there and after a strange encounter with a very randomly trolling train engineer, even though somebody right before him just warned me not to talk to him, I found a small crowd of people in front of the reception. I stand in line, and as I get closer I realize that... the line is invalid. For some reason the machine to get your line number was at the front of the line, and so I get my number and... There's like 100 numbers before me, and the receptionist seems to take her good time. People are getting restless. I watch out of the windows and try to determine where I am.<br /><br />Hm. Strange. I know I'm going homewards, there's no doubt about it but... where am I? I vaguely recognize myself. But surely the next station is home, I will recognize it, and it'll just fall into place. But... how does it look? When I think of it, what does my home look like? My apartment? Do I have a home?<br /><br />The dream either faded into something else entirely after that or I woke up, but it doesn't really matter. This dream never goes on longer after that anyway.<br /><br />What I've come to learn from this dream over the many years (more than a decade for sure) is that it seems to revolve around me getting <i>home</i>, but the further I go the more I start realizing that I don't know where home is and the more I start doubting if I can really find it. It feels like it's there, waiting warmly for my arrival, to embrace me in a definite end, but all memory of how it looks and smells and feels are just faded. Like a dream you really try hard to remember, the memory just out of reach.<br /><br />It's either by school bus, by train, boat, car, walking, space craft perhaps, flying, or a mixture of them all. Sometimes I finally get off the first means of transportation just to go by foot, but usually when the dream lingers on and the further I get spatially in my travel the more lost and insecure I become.<br /><br />Another element is that there are usually quite a lot of people around, people that I know in one way or another. People I belong with, perhaps. Usually, it's faces from kids of my childhood. Kids from school, and I didn't really know many of them very well at that time to be honest, but I had a little normal circle of friends I guess. As the trip homewards goes on, as the dream goes on, people get off at their stops. Because we're usually all going home. Each time, the crowd grows a little bit smaller, and the familiar faces are more and more replaced by unknown ones. A silence grows into what is usually found on public transportation in larger cities as nobody knows anybody except for perhaps a couple or two chatting in the back.<br /><br />So by now I'm going somewhere, and I can't remember how it looks, but it feels like I've missed it even though I know I've been alert and kept my eyes open for it. I can't remember where I was supposed to get off, and I've seen all my friends get off to where they belong.<br /><br />Somehow in all of this I'm rarely sad. I just feel lost. Like the answer is there, just out of reach. I really try my best to reach it or to find someone to tell me where to go, or in recent dreams use my phone's GPS (which suddenly just won't activate).<br /><br />The day turns slowly to dusk. One often recurring element is that the world is sort of... overgrown. Not abnormally so, but trees are often dark green and lush, tufts of grass break through the asphalt here and there, lawns haven't been&nbsp;mowed in a year or two. It's almost always late spring or something.<br /><br />If I don't just wake up after the dream, or dream of something else that I can't remember, the dream changes to me probably having exited my means of transportation (just because I felt it pointless to continue by it) and being confused and lost while people around me do stuff. Nothing in&nbsp;particular, just living their lives I guess, while I feel that time is ticking and the warmth of home and those waiting for me there is just... so far away. But what do I know; I can't even remember what it looks like. I think that in a way, I might even sometimes conclude in my dream that that place doesn't even exist.<br /><br />It's not concrete. It's only abstract. A concept. And the more I try to form in my head what a concrete version of the concept would be... it won't form. Sometimes in the dream I finally know this, but in the beginning I'm always at the same starting point.<br /><br />I'm tired of this. I guess these dreams aren't far from what I feel in real life.<br /><br />I can't seem to hack the recipe for breaking this cycle. Once in my life the dream changed. A few years back as I was studying at the University of Skövde the dream changed for the first time in my life. I was going home at the end of the day, accompanied by new friend, and... I'm not sure I arrived at <i>home</i>, as in an apartment or anything, but sometime we stayed up instead of going home. Hit the town, ate some food, hung out. I don't remember that I dreamed this any larger number of times though and it returned to its old self a while after.<br /><br />So... What now. What ever? Is my concept of <i>home</i> unrealistic? It's (usually, I guess) too abstract for me to determine if its details are flawed or realistic. I know that home for me is where I feel secure and enveloped in warmth and love. I think that pretty much sums it up. Is the concrete form of that a house with an own family? A small apartment with a dog or a cat? I'm not sure it even has to be a <i>place</i>, or any kind of other <i>individual </i>for that matter.<br /><br />Something with this dream's constant&nbsp;recurrence tells me that there's something wired wrong in my thinking and that it's probably very cemented, so to speak. A defective circle that has fed itself over many years. Not that I'm implying that it's impossible to change it - not at all - but that it's probably very hard for <i>me </i>to do it on my own. I can't even see exactly where the problem lies, or which of my known problems might be the cause (or effect) of it.<br /><br />Is my dream telling me that I'll never reach my goal or do I simply have faulty goals? Do I even have goals suited for <i>me</i>? Because honestly, I only have a concept of <i>home</i>, not a concrete picture of it. Sometimes I think I have one, but then it changes or fades. Am I looking for a form of finality in a world that I, from realistic thinking, know doesn't exist since everything is always evolving and <i>on its way</i>;&nbsp;in perpetual movement?<br /><br />The only finality of <i>this</i>,&nbsp;physical, existence that I can think of is death. And no, by the way. I've never had such thoughts and have none now.<br /><br />The only somewhat lasting continuity of this existence is existing, or <i>life</i>. And regardless if you're locked up inside a room or a cell for all your life, or if you're out travelling the world, your existence isn't always the same. Time passes and you change, your surroundings might change, what you want and need and feel changes. There is no absolute <i>finality</i> in it.<br /><br />So what is home? Where is my home? Is it really a destination?<br /><br />That's a very ingrained thing in my way of thinking that with perseverance and time there's a goal, a <i>home</i>, predefined and concrete, waiting in life at the end of a difficult road. That everything I do are steps towards it.<br /><br />It's actually quite silly when I think of it. I usually see myself as a highly realistic person that makes his decisions based on logic and by weighing real options. I don't think I'm generally too pessimistic though, nor too optimistic, as I deem both extremes to be usually unrealistic. I know by experience that most problems can be solved so I usually don't get gloomy over them. Pissed off at times, yes, but I don't give up until I've either succeeded or exhausted all options.<br /><br />That's not entirely true. I can't say I apply that mentality on everything, and that might be part of my problem. Or maybe more probably an effect of it.<br /><br />So yes, at the tip of the tongue is the saying that "the journey is what's important and not the goal" or similar. But that implies that there <i>is</i> a goal.<br /><br />*break*<br /><br />Am I blind to what might be staring me in the face all along?<br /><br />I start out my journey towards the goal&nbsp;<i>home</i> in the presence of friends. Are <i>they</i>, the friends in my dream,&nbsp;home? Another manifestation of my <i>abstract concept</i> of home?&nbsp;With them I feel that I belong, more in the dream than I've felt with any friends in real life.&nbsp;They usually vary from dream to dream, so they're not any certain persons in particular. I <i>think</i>.<br /><br />Take the dreams I had for a short time while studying at the university. Some, if not all (can't remember), ended with me not going home to a<i> place</i> but I stayed with my friends in one way or another. I was home with <i>them</i>. However, the friends in my dream were mostly those I had closest to me in real life. A certain ms Rosin was one of them back then, I recall. When I dream I can't find home the people are usually mostly kids from my childhood (no particular age though, we just <i>are</i> and are equals).<br /><br />In these dreams, the only time I feel I belong is before I realize that I don't know where I'm going, where my final goal lies. The only time in the dream I feel close to the embracing warmth of home is before I start realizing that I don't know where the warm embracing home is.<br /><br />What am I looking for? Friends? Or maybe in other words, <i>love</i>? It's certainly more realistic than the idea of a warm (loving) embracing home as a definite <i>place</i> or destination.<br /><br />But the kind of love isn't that of passion and romance, that's clear from the dream, but rather of <i>acceptance</i>. Of everyone being themselves and everybody else loving it and expecting it.<br /><br />So, if the friends (or the manifestation of belonging, of being loved) aren't any people in particular, then what are they?<br /><br />Painfully obviously <i>me</i>?<br /><br />*break*<br /><br />Maybe. And by <i>me</i>&nbsp;I mean what I do and what I am. I have no problem accepting myself or loving what I am and stand for, most of the time.<br /><br />At the beginning of my university years I felt that I was suddenly allowed to be <i>me </i>much more than ever, to express myself and to be with people that expected nothing different of me and cheered me on.<br /><br />Maybe then after all, <i>doing</i> what I love is home rather than a <i>future</i> goal or state. I guess that being with actual people that&nbsp;appreciate&nbsp;what I do when I do what I love wouldn't hurt, and ironically... that's not common.<br /><br />That brings me to another subject. Well, at least I think so.<br /><br />What if I want goals? In my mind I&nbsp;believe <i>that</i> is what makes me motivated. In reality goals haven't motivated me much so far, though. To be honest, they've mostly been only stressful and potentially been in the way. It's one thing with deadlines when working professionally at a company - they usually get me motivated more the closer to the deadline, but long term personal goals are the opposite.<br /><br />Perhaps they silently become expectations instead. A goal is reached by committing and putting in great effort. An expectation is just achieving the minimum. And when a goal turns into an expectation like that, the effort still feels as great as when trying to reach a goal but if I expect to reach that goal and fail, I feel like I have let myself down. And I don't have to fail to feel that way, of course. If I&nbsp;subconsciously&nbsp;expect myself to finish and encounter resistance, I feel like I've failed.<br /><br />Because of that, it's hard as hell to do anything in my spare time (which I have lots of now). I mentally block myself - not because the effort of doing something is too great, but because I expect myself to carry it through until I reach the goal. Expecting great effort in advance is a good way to kill spirits.<br /><br />So what should I expect of myself?<br /><br />I <i>know</i> that I am a good game designer, that my English and Swedish are both good, that I have good writing skills, that I understand aesthetics, that I understand programming and how all parts in games come together and how that creates limitations for all parts involved. Maybe knowing this is what makes me expect nothing less than to carry through from start to finish without hiccup (and thus completely devoid of any playful curiosity and experimentation).<br /><br />So I know I suck at doing things, basically. But that's the thing. I expect myself to just do it and when I don't, which I won't from just saying "just do it", I've let myself down. The circle feeds itself indefinitely.<br /><br />But yes. That's the root of some of my problems, I think. But I was better at just doing what I loved if I go back a couple of years and yet, the dream was there.<br /><br />*break*<br /><br />If the friends during my journey in my dream are a manifestation of&nbsp;<i>home</i>, then what are they?<br /><br />Maybe they're simply a concept as well and I'm asking the wrong question. Maybe they're not the cause but the effect. So thus, maybe home is not the cause but the effect. Home is not what embraces me in warmth, but the warmth and love that causes me to feel like home.<br /><br />Home for me is not in the future or someplace else, it can only be <i>here</i>. Where ever I am, and never anywhere else.<br /><br />As an insight it feels a bit detaching in a way, but maybe I've always been just a bit too sentimental. And it might help explain why I sometimes need to be by myself. If anyone understands and loves <i>me</i>&nbsp;and lets me be me completely, it's <i>me</i>, which is the reason I didn't use the term "need to be <i>alone</i>" because that's not the true feeling.<br /><br />But I still don't feel like I've come to a conclusion. I've simply asked new questions.<br /><br />*break*<br /><br />Maybe one small step of breaking the circle of passivity and give myself more love is to... well, do what I love. Such as playing some games that I rarely play (but love) because whenever I play them I feel guilty for the fact that I'm not doing something productive. And I can't do anything productive because my spirits are shot.Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-50288539509743581842011-10-12T04:52:00.000+02:002012-07-02T10:25:54.889+02:00Real Person vs. Social Media PersonNo, I'm not going to rant one bit about personal integrity or the evils of services doing exactly what you signed up for by accepting their terms of service. They might still be evil and rotten and greedy bastards, but it's not what I'm going to talk about.<br /><br />It's something I've been thinking about for quite a while. Talked to a friend about it the other day and he couldn't other than agree with my thoughts on it. Look at Facebook. The standard user adds contacts to it at a regular basis. Friends, family, co-workers, cousins, and so on. Contacts. People you usually would <i>never ever</i> want to spend time with all at once suddenly bunched up before the <i>Billboard of You</i>.<br /><br />Personally I felt that what I could write in my feed diminished little by little for each new contact I added. First we had the friends, and then I could write a bit of everything. Oh, now I have a friend from that class. Ok, can't talk much about that class anymore. Oh, now I have someone from that job who might know that and that person. Ok, can't talk freely about work anymore. It goes on and on. You censor yourself. It's fairly natural in the situation.<br /><br />But - many people on there seem to believe that if you read all posts by me in my feed, you can make a good picture of <i>me</i>. Even otherwise intelligent people. The thing is, I know that if you were to read my feed you'd probably conclude that I'm a cynical and whiny fellow because of what I usually post there. It has come to a point when I don't want to share much of the positives of my life. If I write about future hopes and plans or personal victories then I know that a lot of people that I really don't want very close to me will be able to read it.<br /><br />The more people you get in your contact list, the less personal you can be. It goes from full and complex to shallow and simple. It's the same as hanging out with a few select friends - you can usually talk about mostly anything. The more people you add to the room, the less personal you can be. You don't know everybody very well and don't want to let them into your private sphere just yet. It's human nature to want to feel safe. It's in our nature not to show our every weaknesses to strangers, be it moments of sadness or happiness.<br /><br />So what do I post on my facebook account? Usually neutral stuff that nobody cares about anyway, some music link here and there, a photo, and when I dislike something. It can be something or someone, expensive software being incompetently programmed or a movie sucking balls in all the wrong ways. Small annoyances. Because that doesn't let the wrong people in very deeply, I suppose. Close friends tend to understand that. Others... have a tendency of thinking that what they see on facebook is <i>you</i>. The whole you.<br /><br />Really, that is quite stupid when you think about it. And sometimes you get a reply just oozing of <i>hey, I'm gonna put him in his place for everybody, that whiner</i>. It's not often, though, and that's not really the problem either. It's when things like that surface that they can be dealt with. It's all those cases where people just read and make up their minds behind my back.<br /><br />Trust me, there are lots of things in my life that are precious to me and a lot of things that makes me happy. I'm highly optimistic, realistic and logical. I rarely give up. I'm stubborn as hell. I would like to think that I've got integrity. I don't take disrespectful shit from anyone even if that puts a job or something on the line. I'm unemployed, but have saved up some money for the occasion. I have little idea what to do with my immediate future, but I know that things tend to work out. Also, what I love and like in life tends to be different from many others. I don't care much for pubs. I don't care much for... taking a coffee and mingling with a group where half of them are strangers. I don't dance, physically. Needless to say, I don't like shoes and I love being barefoot. I was more open with the positive sides of life way back but it made me feel... <i>exposed</i>.<br /><br />And some people have attacked that, more or less aggressively or passively. An example would be to write something like <i>yeah, we heard you the first time</i> as if he/she suddenly spoke for everyone. Apparently, stating time and time again that you really like to play guitar with your friends or travel to Japan every year and pour photo after photo into your stream, that's fine. You're supposed to like doing that, or whatever. Other stuff are just weird, aren't they. Well, my life's fine without people stepping on what's good, so I'd rather keep that to myself and my closest friends, thanks. The others can have the leftovers.<br /><br />So, yeah. This post is about two phenomenon really. One being diminishing closeness with growing groups and the other being people not understanding that phenomenon.<br /><br />Also, a friend said something smart the other day:<br /><blockquote><i>I'm getting jealous of those who haven't yet got themselves a facebook account.</i></blockquote>I've been thinking lately that I wonder how it would feel to just delete one's account (as much as it's possible, at least). Somehow it feels like it's time to move on. Do I need facebook? Do I need to keep the contact with people like <i>that</i>? I will miss out on announcements made by friends who assume everyone's got facebook, of course... but that's about it. That, or I should just prune away at my contacts like a mad man. Get down to the core group of friends, but... even then, there'd be a lot of different circles that I would be willing to share different facets of myself with. So it feels like it's either all or nothing if it's to really matter.<br /><br />I've always<i> always</i> preferred small groups to bigger ones. That's not because I dislike social contact - quite the opposite. I love hanging out with a small group of friends because you can get much deeper, much more personal. The less people there are, the less chance of the <i>wrong</i> person learing the <i>wrong</i> thing about you. It could be a friend of a co-worker who learns that you plan to quit your job, or a person secretly disliking you finding out that you have a fetish for goblin&nbsp;<i>ears</i> or something and can't wait to spread the delicious news. And you might not <i>know</i> who that is. Of course it matters what other people think, especially those that you take for friends. Strangers, not so much of course, but then again... who knows what strings they can pull in the wrong directions?<br /><br />But look at me. Having to explain any of this really feels like explaining how to walk because it's such a basic thing. Trust and circles. Being <i>you the worker</i> and <i>you the friend</i> and <i>you the parent</i>. It's about filtering away parts of ourselves and sometimes adding a bit more depending on the people you interact with. Put all those groups in a single place... I mean, picture how you would need to shape yourself, what role to put yourself in, for that to work. Ask your friends, family, flirts, co-workers and your boss to come home for a party where you act as if everyone was the same kind of friend. It'd get totally fucked up, and if not, it'd get so extremely shallow and <i>boring</i>. That's what we get with people assuming we're in any shape or form resembling our <i>real selves</i> on Facebook. We're not. That would be absurd.<br /><br />Now I'm starting to sound like that one guy at the Swedish Game Conference who said the same thing over and over for over an hour when he could've just summarized it in 5 minutes or less.<br /><br /><i>(I know the grammar of this post isn't the best and it certainly doesn't represent my skill in English.)</i>Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-60836545998182591202011-10-06T00:32:00.000+02:002011-10-06T00:32:50.402+02:00Swedish Game Conference 2011Attended the first day of SGC today and there were yawns. Good advice for publishers to people who want to pitch games for them, but a little much "we are awesome"-talk from them as well.<br /><br />Interesting talks by the founder of Atari, and during the day he and others said some stuff that must be repeated over and over and over to people doing creative work again until the end of time. Namely, stay focused and try try try again. Fail but don't lose enthusiasm for it, try again. And again. Expect failure and have new ideas in the pipe. Try again.<br /><br />I think it was Daniel Kaplan, maybe not, that said that perfection is a curse and that it keeps you away from the market. Not new but it needs to be repeated. Perfectionists seldom release their stuff onto the market. The others do release their stuff - some fail, some sell. And those that sell may grow because their author gets funds in the process and <i>can</i> let it grow.<br /><br />Another important concept that was touched is that, more or less that, 1% of target audience liking (and paying) you is eternally better than 100% that doesn't because they can't. That was actually not at all the wording that was used today but it's more or less the same. Never releasing your product aiming for perfection is endlessly more worthless than a blemished product on the market. The latter actually has the potential to sell. And selling isn't just about money money money - it's about getting funds to survive and being able to keep doing what you like doing.<br /><br />Talked to a bunch of really nice people today. My previous employer's new animator Cezar, talked and lunched with Daniel Kaplan of Mojang, chatted away with a mr. Wowbagger, a Jonas Berling of a smaller (yet epic-sounding) project. A Richard formerly at Immersive Learning but now employed by Pieces. Feels like I'm forgetting people, crap. Anyway. Everybody seems to know somebody in every company. Game development is a nice, small and intense arena.<br /><br />I also got a very interesting talk with mr. Badylak and it seems as if there might be a few gold nuggets to get from Gothia Science Park of help to me afterall. This makes me slightly more confused, but still not.<br /><br />Conclusion: A lot of work ---&gt; A lot of potential<br /><br />Now bed, tomorrow the second and last day of SGC. After that, probably Civilization 5. Good game. And as mr. Kaplan said today, which again is old wisdom but something that must be repeated, make a game that <i>you</i> will like. Make a game for <i>you</i>. I'd make complex turn-based strategy/tactics games.Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-58579118698184191772011-10-03T14:31:00.000+02:002011-10-03T14:31:30.389+02:00Visor of UrgencySo, things aren't as calm as they were back in July, but I knew this day would come. I just didn't know exactly how it would look.<br /><br />My employment ended at the end of August as planned. It was supposed to start again the first of this month but hasn't and it's a bit of a mess. I don't know why decisions take so long and who I'm waiting for to make those decisions anymore. While I'd love for employment I must expect/assume some measure of upfuckery.<br /><br />Some of the dust has settled however. As expected I see the situation more clearly now that I have the visor of urgency, so to speak. Now more than in a long time I must choose what to do with my situation. I've been thinking over the years about starting my own small company but have put it off. Now, if I get hired again by my previous employer I have to start a company, and if I don't get hired by them I also have to start a company to try to do my own thing.<br /><br />I've been thinking back and forth about what to call my company as well and have gone through a whole lot of options. Mercetron was one of them, but Google is stupid and I don't want people to associate my company name with something so stupid as the thing Google "suggests" when searching for it. Also, it's hard to pronounce correctly for people and the spelling is even harder to try to explain. Tonight I got the idea of what I wanted to call my company and it's a rather unique name that's been with me for years. Also, it's kind of new in that I haven't used it much at all online. It won't be associated with any baggage I might have left behind unknowingly.<br /><br />I won't say what the name is before I've gotten around to registering it though. That's just how I do things.<br /><br />And what would I do with my company? Well, I am a game designer and a programmer. Or maybe rather programmer and game designer... I've always felt that my technical skill is programming, and that game design just comes natural somehow. I get ideas either myself or from other sources and I grind them up in my head to create something bigger... I iterate and iterate and iterate. I test scenarios, I continually ask whether a feature or mechanic serves a purpose or is&nbsp;superfluous. I remove stuff, I add stuff, I see the game grow and breathe and evolve into something as if it has always <i>been</i> what it will become.&nbsp;I love it.<br /><br />I've been thinking table-top games. I know the language of the platform and the compiler is relatively easy to handle. Prototyping is fast as well. It's also extremely challenging.<br /><br />Today I bought a pen for drawing. Not at all the one I set out to buy but after half an hour of testing more or less all the pens they had and weighed the usefulness factor of this and that one, I settled for a rather simple and thick black marker pen. I like thick and deliberate lines. I've never really been a fan of pencils.&nbsp;I'm thinking I really want a small Cintiq, but it's no way near cheap enough not to feel just stupid to buy. Maybe if I get something going in the future it'll be worth it - until then a pen will do.<br /><br />This week, Swedish Game Conference in Skövde. I'm going but have no idea who's going to be there or what they're going to talk about. It'll probably be interesting anyhow so I'll see when I get there.Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-26857801206775883992011-07-24T18:36:00.000+02:002011-07-24T18:36:26.333+02:00HarmonyI don't think I've felt this calm and in harmony for a very very long time. I'm not entirely sure why that is either.<br /><br />I'm sitting here with a fresh cup of coffee, I haven't bothered getting dressed since I woke up this morning and quite frankly - why bother. I've just had some leftovers for dinner. Before me I have a few documents open. They are finished but unpolished charts with rules, game phase descriptions and maps for a table-top game I've been working on for a while.&nbsp;I'm looking forward to playing more Sanctum later this evening with a couple of friends, and I'm actually looking forward for work tomorrow despite the mess and uncertainty of my current job.<br /><br />My apartment is a mess. A large grimy electric barbecue machine needs to be cleaned. I need to shave and cut my hair. It'll come. It'll be done.<br /><br />I feel... good. My being, right now, is good. I have a cool, cute mate who's constantly surprising me even today 10 years after I first met her. I have great friends that I can trust and who stand up for me when I need them.<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0p_VzC7ozLE/TixJ3zQOS0I/AAAAAAAAAXU/Nqtbbl88Uxk/s1600/crop2_center_blue_2011-04-16-10-52-49-539_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="142" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0p_VzC7ozLE/TixJ3zQOS0I/AAAAAAAAAXU/Nqtbbl88Uxk/s320/crop2_center_blue_2011-04-16-10-52-49-539_.jpg" width="320" /></a>Maybe this is the calm before a storm. I know I have a lot of things before me and I don't know a tenth of what they are. I'm hoping for the best, hoping for sanity, order and some form of maturity to prevail. I've learned a lot from the past years and I'm at the threshold of leaving that behind for good.<br /><br />But right now, I'll just take sips of my coffee and rest my feet for a while.<br /><br /><br />Oh, there they are, asking if I want to play Sanctum.Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-18871739530607161442011-06-21T10:36:00.000+02:002011-06-21T10:37:20.566+02:00JavaNo, not the coffee.<br /><br />But <i>seriously</i>, what surfer would make <i>that </i>association before associating "Java" with the programming language?<br /><br />I think I had a break when finding a book ("Head First") that explained the basics of Java but written for... well, me, it seemed. It wasn't<i> "this is programming and this is a computer"</i>&nbsp;nor was it<i> "this is a superflux caputization megamax twix ultra mk 2 interface"</i>. It was <i>"you're not stupid, this is how Java works"</i>. I'll plow on, but yesterday I wrote my first snipped of working code on an Eee PC and ran it.<br /><br />Java uses a main(). When was the last time I didn't work with an fully event based language? Like early 2000. How I have missed having the simple control of a main function that dispatches everything and that lets me decide the order in which to do everything. Not events, floating fuzzily in space until fired.<br /><br />For me, that extra level of control feels delicious. It's hard to have a clear picture of everything and the problem a program is solving when huge parts of the execution of the program just lingers in some black unknown space. That's a little how fully event based stuff feels like. I like to say "yes, you have a message for me, good, stand over there until I'm ready for it" instead of "you have a message for me, I'll take care of that maybe now or maybe after I've done that other thing or maybe in the middle I don't know".<br /><br />It's probably not that confusing for those that like it but that's the jist of it for me. And I really don't have anything against events but I prefer to use my own callbacks and stuff as much as possible. It just feels less uncontrolled, more structured. For example, take Unity, where there's a "core" somewhere hidden and everything runs through events. It works well but... I don't know, it feels flimsy.<br /><br />Well, this was just a start. I'm glad though that I've seemed to pass my traditional first "learn new language barrier". I never know when or how to pass it usually.Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-68818320227723955822011-04-18T20:07:00.000+02:002011-04-18T20:07:38.777+02:00Motivation<div style="text-align: left;">Great TED Talk about motivation and how <i>carrots &amp; sticks</i> as a means to motivate has been proven ineffective and in some cases even motivationally destructive. Why do I post this? Partly because I love this kind of psychology but mostly because it talks about a subject I've been fighting with for a long time: <b><i>Motivation</i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><object height="326" width="446"><param name="movie" value="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"/><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><param name="bgColor" value="#ffffff"></param><param name="flashvars" value="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/dynamic/DanielPink_2009G-medium.flv&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/DanielPink-2009G.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=432&vh=240&ap=0&ti=618&lang=eng&introDuration=15330&adDuration=4000&postAdDuration=830&adKeys=talk=dan_pink_on_motivation;year=2009;theme=the_creative_spark;theme=speaking_at_tedglobal2009;theme=not_business_as_usual;event=Not+Business+as+Usual;tag=Business;tag=Science;tag=brain;tag=creativity;tag=social+change;tag=work;&preAdTag=tconf.ted/embed;tile=1;sz=512x288;" /><embed src="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf" pluginspace="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" bgColor="#ffffff" width="446" height="326" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" flashvars="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/dynamic/DanielPink_2009G-medium.flv&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/DanielPink-2009G.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=432&vh=240&ap=0&ti=618&lang=eng&introDuration=15330&adDuration=4000&postAdDuration=830&adKeys=talk=dan_pink_on_motivation;year=2009;theme=the_creative_spark;theme=speaking_at_tedglobal2009;theme=not_business_as_usual;event=Not+Business+as+Usual;tag=Business;tag=Science;tag=brain;tag=creativity;tag=social+change;tag=work;"></embed></object></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">For years, I've been trying to figure out exactly what makes me motivated. What makes me want to work and not go home from office. I've had different theories which seemed so-so, such as interface design, game design, and lately I thought it might even be game editing tool design. For some reason, what I usually finish when it comes to private projects are either level editors or menu systems or things like that. Tools, not an end product.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Quite recently, I think I found what the common denominator was in all this. I love improving things. When I'm faced with a task I usually start thinking of how to make that task easier, how to improve the workflow, to get past that boring part of the work as quickly and as effectively as possible. One good example is when I worked at Lockpick Entertainment. We had these huge excel-documents with miles and miles of items and abilities and units for this huge MMO real-time strategy game. One day, I was given the task to transfer these from the excel documents to the actual game database. The way this was done at the company before was to go to a certain website with your browser, click "add item" and then, field by field (usually around 30 or so fields), copy and paste all the stats cell by cell into the site. Then you pressed done, and you were done with one of the often hundreds of items... of one excel document.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">No, I thought. There had to be another way to do this, so I did some digging and came up with the solution: I'll make a visual basic script for each excel document which goes through the list and parses it to an XML-file. At the other end, one of our programmers took a few hours to make an importer for it. The exporter took a week or two to make, the importer a day or so, and in the end each excel-document had a large button "Export to XML". You clicked it, all data was exported into XML, and with a single copy-paste into the importer website and a "Ok", weeks of work could be done in 10 seconds.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This was during a beta of the game which meant that these lists would be updated at least once every day. Using the old way, this would simply be impossible, or soul-destroying for the one who had to do it. Regardless of how impossible it would have been however, that's how my brain works. It loves solving problems, but it hates droning. When I started working at Lockpick I had tons of fun, and I was praised for the work I did. Interface design, the exporters, story writing, forum management.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">However, my last time at Lockpick was the complete opposite. I had to sit with an (inferior and <i>oh my gods</i> so improvable) mission editor and make as many strategy game "grind" missions as I could as fast as I could. We are talking creating missions using a website, where your only view of the map was - and I'm not kidding - a 128x128 thumbnail of the height map. The units were red dots. It was an area smaller than your photo on your Facebook page.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">That was the most boring and soul crunching job I've ever done, I think. Partly, it was so clear to not just me but the rest of the team that the editor <i>had</i> to be replaced with something... functional. And also, I was producing something that I simply didn't believe in. My boss did, and that was that. I was spending days to create a mission (in which there couldn't be much variety due to our restrictions) that a player would go through in 2-3 tries. Oh there were so many things wrong with the whole concept, but I was a grunt, and I was put to do a grunt's work in the end.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">(Speaking of which; we had a "manual" for that editor which I took the liberty to improve. We went from a&nbsp;whopping&nbsp;worthless 4 pages to 22 pages and those were 99% explaining every single control in the editor window from top to bottom. I liked doing it because it felt like it actually made a<i> difference</i>. Players and other workers would some day use that tool and would need a pedagogical manual to understand it.)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Back to the subject... I'm a <b>problem identifier</b> and a<b> problem solver</b>, I guess you could say. I'm not just a game designer, I'm not a hardcore programmer.&nbsp;I'm not a great artist.&nbsp;I'm not super good at<i> any one thing</i>. I'm rather all-round. Not in a way that I don't like doing anything so let me bring you coffee; no, but in a way that I like doing a little bit of everything and see everything come together. I love systems, how something on one end affects something on the other end. I like to "tie the bag together" as someone once put it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And I love not just game design, but I'm fascinated by the business side of it too. I strongly believe in experimenting with concepts of free/pay which doesn't involve the selling of a billion hats. (And I strongly oppose the concept of being able to buy yourself past progress where progression is the meat of the game. I believe in paying for the opportunity to progress. In a way, think an expansion to World of Warcraft as opposed to being able to buy yourself to top level and the best gear. Yet, some developers and publishers really think it's a good idea. Maybe it is in some cases if you want to kill off your own games and sell new ones instead, but not from a game developer's point of view - you put love into creating a game that players get to pay to not play.)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This was kind of a rant.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Uhm. I think I'm going to go play some...thing.</div>Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-57616170813133513362011-03-16T12:33:00.000+01:002011-03-16T12:38:02.765+01:00Squandered Good Intent and CharitySo today I threw some money in the direction of the Red Cross (in Sweden) to show some support for the people in Japan. Such a small country with so many people, and they get hit not only with a tsunami but nuclear reactor meltdown in the midst of it which some say is as bad as the Tjernobyl incident.<br /><br />Now, these are not the only ones in the world right now needing help. Let's not forget the unrest down south where dictators send in air strikes on his own people for protesting against him. While monetary support for these is probably good, one other good way of helping is actually awareness. Exposure. The media has turned its eyes towards Japan and their crisis, forgetting for a moment places like Libya which in turn makes it easier for their president to strike without as much media attention. Not that his actions aren't already bad enough.<br /><br />Anyhow, I have seen a "campaign" a few days now called "Pray for Japan". It leads to a site (twibbon) which says something like "Japan needs our support so lets pray for them". Pray? <i><b>Pray?</b></i> How about actually <b>helping</b>? How about at least inform viewers in <i>how to help</i>? Spreading that kind of information?<br /><br />So today I sent a donation. I certainly haven't got a solid economy at the moment, but I felt that in the midst of good intentions getting squandered on "praying", at least I could do the right thing.<br /><br />And yeah, I know, that's very un-Swedish of me to say. You should just get back to your place in line, don't make a sound, don't sound like you're better than anything or anybody else, and be a good citizen (and today, ironically, the Swedish government will vote about the "data retention directive" - a law that ultimately allows them to track our every step, when and with whom we communicate with).<br /><br />For information on how to actually <i>help</i> the people in Japan (or for example Libya) you can go to <a href="http://www.redcross.se/">Red Cross (Sweden)</a> or <a href="http://www.redcross.org/">Red Cross (America)</a>. Remember though, even if you can't help <i>directly</i>, you can always <i>indirectly </i>help by informing others. It's definitely worth more than a million prayers...Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-12261546862429450892011-01-13T13:00:00.000+01:002011-01-13T16:21:35.025+01:00When do you become non-Indie?I'm getting more and more annoyed at people on the internet. Yeah, I know, how can that possibly be? Unusual stuff!<br /><br />Shortly put; it's the label "Indie". I love that label, and for me, that has always had a rather simple definition. Indie means independent. In music and movie business, it means that the creators are independent from any record labels or publishers that usually own part or the whole of the artist or production team. They stand on their own legs and handle most things themselves that a publisher usually would, and must deal with the expenses themselves, and all that.<br /><br />For me, it has always been obvious and natural to assume that indie, when it comes to game development, means the exact same thing.<br /><br />The game industry is in some ways very similar to that of music and movies. The usual scenario is that we have a publisher that sits on a lot of money, and give you (the creator) some of that money in order to produce something that the publisher can publish. They invest money in you so that you can create something that will earn them the invested money and a profit.<br /><br />If you <b>don't have a publisher</b> or similar more external investor or owner, no middle-men that control your creative process so to speak, and <b>fund everything yourself</b> using money coming directly from your own (personal or company's) pocket or directly from sales, and <b>make all your own decisions</b> being your own top dog, then you are <b>indie</b>. You are independent.<br /><br />Yet for some reason, people online tend to argue that selling a lot of copies of a game makes you less indie. Or, forming a company makes you not indie. The company is still independent.<br /><br /><b>Example: </b>Dice (the creators of Battlefield and Mirror's Edge among other games) are not independent as they depend on Electronic Arts (their owners). Mojang (the creators of Minecraft) started out as one guy making a game and ended up in a small company which is still independent as they are their own owners.<br /><br />I hate when good and descriptive labels gets watered down.Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-52501608886028356992010-12-15T12:53:00.000+01:002011-06-21T23:19:48.962+02:00Low speaker volume on HTC Desire HDI just recently got a <b>severely annoying problem</b> with my week-old HTC Desire HD. First things first; I love this machine. Then again, it's my first smartphone and my previous phone was a LG Shine following my Motorola Razr. So, regardless of the smartphone I bought I would take one huge step. Then again, I naturally tried a few ones out before settling. I was close to getting the cheaper Desire (without "HD") but when I got to the point of comparing the screens side-by-side, the choice was clear for me. Even though it's the same technology on paper on both screens, the Desire HD was just... crisp. Almost as crisp as iPhone 4. The ordinary Desire had this very visible "pixel grid" - the borders of the pixels were too visible for me.<br /><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_xfjWxpqklYU/TQim88bAqjI/AAAAAAAAARs/-gGTSlx4kFI/s1600/HTC+Desire+HD+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="253" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_xfjWxpqklYU/TQim88bAqjI/AAAAAAAAARs/-gGTSlx4kFI/s320/HTC+Desire+HD+4.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">HTC Desire HD</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div>Anyway, <b>the problem</b> was that suddenly after a week's use the volume on the speaker went down, a lot. Games were hardly audible at all, music and most of all ringtones and notification sounds could only be heard if you were in a otherwise silent room. I tried all sorts of settings, but all volume sliders were at max. I tried various volume changing apps, but they all stated the same - the volume was at max.</div><div><br />So clueless, I went to The Phonehouse (Skövde) to ask for help. They looked at it, and even called HTC to see if there were more with the same problem. Some had complained about overall low volume; and yes, the speaker volume was kind of low (not at all as loud as for example iPhone 4) from the start but you could easily hear your ringtones and the like. They had no other solution than to have me send in the phone for checkups and possibly repairs. In the store they kind of concluded that it probably was a hardware issue, since sound was good with headphones plugged in but not when using the speakers.<br /><br />However, as a "last resort" before sending it in, they asked if I could try factory resetting it. I thought that it couldn't hurt but I had no hopes of it actually working. But, to my surprise, it did work. So, the problem wasn't hardware based.<br /><br />I installed all my usual apps again and everything went fine. I thought that maybe I had installed some app that I had forgotten about that somehow bugged out the volume for me before the reset. Then this morning after my walk to work it happened again. Ringtones low and music (through the speaker) was barely audible.<br /><br />What the frak? So I retraced my steps. What had I done between my&nbsp;apartment&nbsp;and work? I had... surfed a little, checked twitter, and been listening to the FM Radio (using the built-in app). When I arrived at work, I disconnected my headphones, picked up my phone and did the usual stuff and that's when I realized the volume was out of whack.<br /><br />Then it hit me; the built-in radio app has a power button. You can, for some reason, only click it (to exit the app) when the headphones are plugged in. When they're disconnected the app tells you to plug them back in as it uses them as an antenna. I didn't think much of it at first and just clicked "home" to "close" the radio but apparently the radio was still there, in the background... So, to try out my theory that maybe you HAVE to close the radio using its own power button, I plugged in my headphones and clicked the power button, and when the app was finally closed I disconnected my headphones again.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_xfjWxpqklYU/TQisCIe4PNI/AAAAAAAAARw/EUEq_tYDkqU/s1600/desire-froyo-fm-radio.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_xfjWxpqklYU/TQisCIe4PNI/AAAAAAAAARw/EUEq_tYDkqU/s200/desire-froyo-fm-radio.png" width="120" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Built-in FM Radio app</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Voila. <b>All volume levels back to normal. </b>The FM Radio app had altered the volume levels behind the scenes somehow and didn't change them back until it was closed the "proper" way.<br /><br />So, a TLDR...<br /><br /><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">Problem:</span></b><br /><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></b>Extremely low music, ringtone and notification volume on my HTC Desire HD's speaker.<br /><br /><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">My solution:</span></b><br /><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></b>When using the built-in FM Radio app, use its own "power" button to close the radio BEFORE disconnecting my headphones.<br /><br /><b>EDIT:</b> I tried to recreate the problem after I wrote this post. I instantly succeeded in recreating the problem, but not the above-mentioned solution. Instead, <b>this time I fixed it</b> by setting it to speaker mode <i>before</i>&nbsp;(press "menu" and then "speakers") closing the "FM Radio" app and disconnecting my headphones. I'm certain that this app is the problem (for me anyway). So for me, and I recommend this for anybody else with the same problem, get another app for playing FM Radio until this issue is fixed!<br /><br /><i>Do take a look in the <b>comments section</b> below for more tips if my solution didn't work for you!</i></div>Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-86857918251961227222010-11-21T05:43:00.000+01:002010-11-21T05:43:57.472+01:00I'm SickI'm sick. Have had several things going on lately. A headache that explodes whenever I do something slightly physically demanding and most of all when I do intimate things, simply put. Also, I have a cold and a fever, but on top of that I have a cough. A tickling dry sensation in my throat that gets worse by coughing. It doesn't hurt, it's just there, making me cough and cough. Especially, of course, during the night and when I lie down.<br /><br />This night I had to go throw up just because I coughed so much. I didn't feel sick or anything, I just coughed so much my body probably thought there was something stuck in my throat. Fun. After that, it kept itching. I've even popped some pills; one especially that's supposed to affect the coughing center of the brain. It doesn't really work.<br /><br />So, instead of laying in the bed I have to sit up and sleep. I've slept some 3 hours so far. It reminds me of when I had this a few years back. I coughed in my sleep so much that my throat cramped, and I couldn't breathe. Imagine waking up in the middle of the night, realizing you can't get any oxygen at all, then having to climb over a partner and down the bed ladder, and naked running through the student corridor onto the balcony where you try to cough and cough and cough but without getting any air for a minute (which felt like an eternity) all the while the body tries to evacuate whatever might be stuck in the throat. No fun.<br /><br />Needless to say, I'm scared of sleeping when I am like this. Though, as it looks now it's impossible to sleep when I cough. Except when I sit up. For some reason it doesn't itch as much - but it does itch.<br /><br />An interesting part of this is that my brain seems to want to explain what's going on in the most bizarre ways. Yesterday I had been at a friend's place watching him play Silent Hill 3. When I tried to sleep, my brain wanted to somehow connect my inability to sleep with me playing Silent Hill 3 where I was trying to find the best way out of a maze while being chased by pyramid head. It wasn't even a nightmare. I remember waking up a few times, and then the "final" time I shook my head and told myself "hey, come on, I'm awake - the whole Silent Hill thing is just bullshit, it's not real, what I should focus on is to sleep comfortably".<br /><br />This night, it's the same thing. Whenever I try to sleep, trying to find some new position where I perhaps don't cough as much, my brain tries to connect that with something else.<br /><br />Like, when I try to find a good position, I'm helping the characters in the series Lost to set up various perimiters and defenses in the jungle. When I finally shook that out of my head, it switched to trying to clean the backs of books. And then boxes. And letting different body parts sleep. And even though I'm fully aware that it's really stupid, my brain falls back onto it again and again. I just can't think to myself that "I'm now going to try to sleep" - the mission is much deeper than that.<br /><br />I suppose it's the fever playing tricks on me, and maybe it's a nice way to put my mind on something else for a while.<br /><br />I hope this'll pass soon. I can take an exploding headache and a fever and a running nose, but this itching throat... it's just too much.<br /><br />Where I got all this from? I don't know, but one should remember that my partner was sick (he's working with teenagers...) and I have a job and I go to school. In school, I always try to sit as far up in the front as I can which means that any coughing and sneezing from the others in the classroom will hit me. Having the science of viruses and stuff in mind, I<i> don't</i> currently dress too lightly to affect my immune system (in contrary to popular superstition). I also know that when I dress more heavily it's more difficult to move and I lose my breath more easily leading to me breathing with my mouth (to "catch up") instead of my nose which more or less means no air filtering. Knowing that viruses usually enter through the nose and mouth, and knowing<i> my</i> <i>own</i> body heat make no difference in the virus' cold-induced increased capacity to pass my defenses, the way I dress really makes no difference. Spare me the theories that build upon the old and incorrect name "to catch a cold" please.<br /><br />I'll try to sleep again. I wish I had some nice Nyponsoppa.Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-90586121656490216882010-11-16T01:13:00.000+01:002010-11-16T01:13:32.002+01:00The Future of My LifeIt feels, kind of, like I'm on a <b>narrow bridge</b> right now. In front of me lies the future of my life that I want, the one that I've been building up to for many years - from the day I started the Swedish equivalence to upper high school. Below lies another life. Not one that I've been building up to, or dreaming about. Maybe one that'll suffice, or maybe not at all. I have no idea what's below me at this point. It could as well end up with me on the street. Or, with any other job just to get by. Or, with me being forced to move somewhere to work.<br /><br />In front of me lies a future where I control my own life, do my own thing, do what I like to do. In front of me lies what I have behind me, in a way. Today, I finally got an old game of mine to work. I made it 12 years ago in a couple of weeks, sprites and game play and programming and all. It was in C++ and for DOS, writing directly to the video memory. It was art. It was the ugliest code in the world probably, as it was my first attempt at C++, and what was supposed to be pure and clean object-oriented programming it turned into a tangled octopus of cross-referencing code. But it worked. The graphics worked. The loader worked. The mechanics did exactly what they were supposed to do. There was even a level editor, and the graphics editor wasn't just any old editor, it was a program I myself had made in QBasic years back. A program that allowed me to pixelate my own sprites, rotate them, perform smoothing filters on them, load external palettes. It even had a simple RLE compression going on.<br /><br />The last years I've been taught to plan, <b>to design</b>. To move from producing games into planning for them. To always stand on the threshold to making things, but never to cross it. I'm not a graphical artist. I'm not a programmer. Not officially, not on paper. I'm a game designer. I'm supposed to be done with my job before anything gets made - the ideal scenario of a dream world where I would go on to design the next project as the previous design was implemented by programmers and artists. Crap, really. I don't have much training of it in the last few years, except for Game Maker but that is not like I was before. Even in Game Maker, I went from bypassing the build-in systems for drawing graphics more or less, the levels (rooms) as well, and made my own layers and handler objects that took care of things the way I wanted them to. Today, I mostly use what's pre-built. I want to make things fast. I'm impatient. What once was a challenge now becomes an obstacle. Too many obstacles and I lose motivation. I've been trained to plan and to see the game as a whole, which is good, but when I then try to make the game myself I get impatient because of the amount of work before I can see the "whole".<br /><br />I'm <b>impatient </b>for many reasons. It's hard to know what developer platform to choose, nowadays. It's easier with Unity though, since it's a powerful tool that's free for indies. But again, there are choices. There's not just one scripting language in it, it's three. And suddently, I can't just make graphics as easily. Should it be 3D? Well, then I need a 3D modeller. There are plenty, and the one I got taught using in school is, naturally, the most expensive one. And so on. What was once relatively simple (and difficult at the same time) has shifted to be complex (and easy). It's ironic; to do today what I wanted to do back when I was young can be done with a few clicks. To do today what I could quickly and easily do back then, like art and all those things, is a science in itself.<br /><br />A part of me <b>wouldn't want to change a thing</b> with my studies at the University of Skövde. Well, maybe, it would have been nice to have graduated back when I was supposed to instead of this year. But the subject of game design was really interesting. I know a lot of stuff, I understand games, and I probably "get it" more than I realize. But, <b>somehow I regret</b> not taking the "programming" program instead. To be fair to myself, the program I choose was called "design and programming" back then, even though there wasn't much programming to talk about in it - only a beginners course in C++ using some version of SDL. I think it was in the first grade too, so I lost the programming-steam a little the following years.<br /><br />I love games, and <b>I love programming</b>. Sometimes, when I rarely get down to coding, I realize just how much I love it. To solve the puzzles, to come up with, and implement, clever solutions and finally seeing all the cogs turn and work together as a whole. When things are as easy as they are, with Unity and similar engines, a part of that "clever solutions" thing disappears. A part of what drives me to code dies, and with that a part of the motivation to complete (or even start) a project.<br /><br />Until recently I've been working on a project (as a hired programmer) where I would make an e-learning application in Flash (Action Script 3). While the project started out fine, and then surely and steadily drifted deeper into crap (due to month after month of delays of resources I had to have in order to develop and test the software, and then getting most of the blame from ONE side of my employers and understanding from the OTHER side of my employers)... well, apart from the crap, and apart from Flash being a b-tch to me much of the time, it was quite fun. I got to do a lot of "clever solutions" due to the flying fridge incompetence of AS3 and Flash. And no, I'm not saying I wasn't happy when the project finally ended.<br /><br /><b>I wish</b> I had a more advanced, deep, understanding of programming. I felt I got lost on the way somewhere. Maybe even as early as when DOS died and windows was the only thing. I remember trying to code something, and instead of having a few lines of code to set the "screen mode" and set a pointer to the video memory, I instead had to do all kinds of things with a heap load of lines of code, just to make a little visible window. And when things grow in complexity, I know there must be variants of doing it, and with that and not being able to understand each and every line of code I write, I stop. I want to understand - that is how I work.<br /><br />Maybe Unity could be a way to fool my brain however. The complex things are taken care of for me. When I code, I don't see anything other than the things I want to do - there is no initiation, no memory handling, nothing of that sort - at least not visible to <i>me</i>. So, there are no lines of code for me not to understand. However, the whole engine still feels like a huge black box that I don't understand. I know that it works, but I don't know exactly how, and personally I can't change any of it either - I just need to use it as it is.<br /><br />But maybe that's the thing - I can't go back to the <b>simplicity of DOS</b> anymore. It's impossible. There is no market for DOS games. There haven't really been a market for them for over a decade. Today, you have to build your game upon pre-built libraries that take care of the complex things for you and speed things along. I suppose, however, that there's still a lot of room for those clever solutions... I suppose I just haven't got that far with a personal project for quite some time to know how that would look today.<br /><br />I've <b>digressed</b>.<br /><br />I'm uneasy. <b>Stressed</b>. Slightly lost. I'm at the end of a chapter, and I know that my actions <i>here</i> will determine what the next chapter will be and there is no turning back. At least, there is no climbing back onto the narrow bridge once I've fallen off. And I know that even if I surpass all my expectations of myself and deliver, I might still fail. I might still fall off. My future depends on hard work and luck. I don't really like that combination. Maybe luck - being able to grab the attention and interest of potential customers - can be transformed into some form of diligence; some actual performance that I can control.<br /><br />I'm <b>closing in on 30</b>. Not there quite yet, I've still got two and a half years to go more or less. And I'm not expecting my life to follow some socially and externally defined ideal or anything, but I want to get on top of things. I want a respectful income. I want to have friends over for dinner and not having to cry about the expenses. A bit of normal luxury, being able to travel, try new things out and afford to take chances. Maybe get a dog, even. Heck, some day I would probably not mind getting a <b>kid </b>of my own. I want to have a nice savings account, a steady income, and... well, simply put, to be on top of things.<br /><br />I'm holding a bag of dreams and the only clear vision of a potential future in my hands, and there is no longer a safety net to catch me. <b>Better not slip up.</b>Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-79511483136893043382010-11-11T11:45:00.000+01:002011-10-10T20:53:04.966+02:00I feel like a thief......because I only paid 10€ for Metro 2033 during a sale on Steam. I thought this game would sortofkindof be mediocre in all aspects but...<br /><br />Fudge. I love this game. I find myself wanting to play Metro 2033 every day; just to go into the sort of cozy-homey yet scary-as-frap tunnels. I love the monster design, I love all the "ambient" dialogue, the short and long events that trigger here and there. I feel never really sure what will happen, even though it's a rather straight-forward shooter.<br /><br />I keep thinking to myself that Metro 2033 is like Half-Life in Russia. But at the same time, it feels like it's one of a kind. The lighting, animation, varying atmosphere, tension... And the details such as the breathing, the condensation on the visor as the filter gets bad, having to pump up the battery for the light and nightvision (and in my case - the pressure for my weapon).<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_xfjWxpqklYU/TN2ZX71zuWI/AAAAAAAAARg/0QihDueyt-4/s1600/Metro2033+2010-11-10+23-30-20-29.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_xfjWxpqklYU/TN2ZX71zuWI/AAAAAAAAARg/0QihDueyt-4/s400/Metro2033+2010-11-10+23-30-20-29.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You are more than often not alone.</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">I found a weapon rather early on that fires steel balls. You have to reload the weapon as usual AND pump up a pressure in order for the gun to do any damage. One shot is usually enough to take down a human and lesser monster alike even without headshots sometimes. I just can't swap it to anything else ^^ But, when there are lots of enemies coming at me... reloading AND pumping pressure is one freaky scary experience.</div><br />I haven't finished it yet, but I'm assuming I'm getting close. It's, for me, one long game. Perfect for an hour or two in the evening, and it has lasted me 9 hours so far the way I've played it.<br /><br />It feels like a perfectly balanced experience, for me. Not too little of anything, and they are not afraid of having plenty of living and talking humans that aren't <i>firing </i>at you. It's not too hard and it's not too easy, so it's always that tension - will I make it? Will I run fast enough? Will they catch up with me? Will my ammo be sufficient? Will I be able to reload until the next attack? What will happen next? What enemies will I encounter? Will I have enough filters? Will it be scary ♥♥♥♥ or will I have the upper hand and hunt from the shadows? Will I be on foot or in some vehicle? Will I...<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_xfjWxpqklYU/TN2au9sHO8I/AAAAAAAAARo/LqX9YR2xOEk/s1600/Metro2033+2010-11-10+23-15-02-54.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_xfjWxpqklYU/TN2au9sHO8I/AAAAAAAAARo/LqX9YR2xOEk/s400/Metro2033+2010-11-10+23-15-02-54.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Watched by many green eyes...</td></tr></tbody></table><br />I love First Person Shooters, and I love how not all games today need to focus on multiplayer. I love multiplayer, but sometimes I want a well-directed epic experience to consume (and be consumed by) all on my own. Immersion and story usually flies right out the window the moment multiplayer becomes the focus.<br /><br />Metro 2033 is a bit different. It was a bit strange getting used to the controls and field-of-view (even though the controls are, like, really standard ironically), but as I kept playing I got used to it. I sort of "got it". You're a human trying to survive in narrow tunnels from enemies that are far superior in almost every way - except you can take them out from a distance.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_xfjWxpqklYU/TN2aPWr9iJI/AAAAAAAAARk/StwgnDCCwhw/s1600/Metro2033+2010-11-10+22-38-26-46.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_xfjWxpqklYU/TN2aPWr9iJI/AAAAAAAAARk/StwgnDCCwhw/s400/Metro2033+2010-11-10+22-38-26-46.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Peeking out into the blinding light of a frozen Moscow.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Ah, well, I shall stop ranting.<br /><br />But again - great game. It's like going off-road, taking a back-alley, leaving the shallow mainstream - only to find a fresh long vibrant alley of substance. And I get to play a Russian. How absolutely refreshing is that.<br /><br /><b>EDIT:</b> I finished it! It lasted me 11 hours, and got even more epic as the end drew nearer. Beautiful game with, for me, lots of replay value. The dark tunnels of Moscow's metro is strangely beckoning.<br /><div class="smallfont" style="color: #dddddd; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div>Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-86983318915257567262010-10-24T13:43:00.000+02:002010-10-24T13:46:12.397+02:00Love&lt;3 a weekend when I can actually relax<br /><br />&lt;3 the grocery shopping with a friend yesterday, short sleeved and barefoot in 4°C rain<br /><br />&lt;3 the party at a friend's place yesterday, with tacos, lots of talk and games<br /><br />&lt;3 bare feet, deeply and sincerely<br /><br />&lt;3 the autumn and the snow<br /><br />&lt;3 simple things in life<br /><br />&lt;3 the now<br /><br />&lt;3 that one of the most horrible projects at work is soon to end<br /><br />&lt;3 the future, slowly drifting closer, with a place to finally call my own<br /><br />&lt;3 dreaming of having a canine friend some day, when time/money/space allows<br /><br />&lt;3 cool friends that constantly remind me of how awesome humans can be<br /><br />&lt;3 that it's Sunday and still just time to relax<br /><br />&lt;3 internet, and all the chill out entertainment and music it provides so easily<br /><br />&lt;3 my "new" mobile phone that does what it should and looks quite nice<br /><br />&lt;3 my computer with two monitors that let me do my things my way<br /><br />&lt;3 all the great artists who draw things that light up my day<br /><br />&lt;3 my couch, my TV and my game consoles<br /><br />&lt;3 my plushies<br /><br />&lt;3 coffee and ice cold water<br /><br />&lt;3 trying new things and finding out what works for me<br /><br />&lt;3 the look in the eyes of those who believed theirs was the only way<br /><br />&lt;3 a confident and secure but playful and curious attitude in others<br /><br />&lt;3 good communication and sincerity<br /><br />&lt;3 to say what's on one's mind, to vent both frustrations and happiness<br /><br />&lt;3 being me, friends being them, and none of us trying to change that<br /><br />&lt;3 how life can be goodMercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1155489587544259443.post-88932580462098357232010-10-21T18:23:00.000+02:002010-10-23T13:10:32.429+02:00Business Planning HomeworkI'm currently doing some homework for a course I'm attending in Business Planning. The homework assignment is to write a sort of business plan draft, with a believable budget. It's kind of tricky, and I must admit that I've sort of been a bit afraid of this part for some time, but now when I sit down with it I find it to be... kind of fun!<br /><br />What product do you plan to produce? What market do you want to penetrate? Who are your customers? What benefit does your product offer customers? Why would this product sell? What competition is there?<br /><br />...and so on. Short questions that sort of explode into long answers. What competition? Well, it depends on platform and what customer group. I'll have to fight with one bunch of companies for one type of customers, and another bunch of companies for the other type of customers, and so on.<br /><br />I won't go into details of what I'm writing here, however, as I'm partly playing with actual business ideas.<br /><br />Now, I'll dig into the budget part. Probably difficult as holy hell.<br /><br /><b>EDIT:</b> I made some error in my liquidity calculations (prediction) that seemed to propagate to the balance calculations in some way, but only in the 3rd and 4th year for some reason. It was difficult, but... fun! It was the final step to see exactly how the business model would work if it worked as intended! And to see what margins are there; for example how many copies of a game you'd have to sell for the company to survive with reasonable wages. The numbers are quite astronomical for a simple guy like me, but at the same time not when you see them churn around in your business plan.Mercetronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09772509705872374501noreply@blogger.com1